By Ahmed Rufa’i, Dutse
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has trained 50 journalists representing national dailies and reporters of local media on “Digital Journalism and Fact Checking” in Jigawa state.
Speaking while declaring the training open the NITDA Head of Corporate Affairs and External Relations Hadiza Umar said the training was aimed at enhancing the capacity of practising journalists on modern journalism and how to take advantage of digital technology to strengthen the public confidence on their editorial contents.
Umar stated further that the essence is to enlighten the journalists on the importance of application of Code of Ethics of journalism profession in their day-to-day activities as a guiding principle of journalism practice.
According to her “Our mission is to update practicing journalists on the concept of modern practices in line with the global trend in digital journalism to conform with the present times, challenges, as well as to refrain from fake news or any unhealthy development which could be inimical to the code of ethics in journalism”.
On his part the publicity secretary of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Lagos Chapter, Samuel Adeyemi warned the participants to beware of people that use them to promote pecuniary ideology and agenda.
The Project Manager of Penlight Centre, Dahiru M Lawal, spoke on online media fact-checking, media monitoring and search engine optimization, where he introduced Journalists and social media influencers to basic knowledge of facts reporting, content monitoring on social media and techniques of using digital tools for effective verification of information.
Also speaking the chairman Jigawa state Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Comrade Muh’d Zangina Kura commended National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for training its members on digital Journalism and Digital Facts checking.
The chairman said, the training will enhance the professional skill of the practicing journalists in the state to meet with the contemporary challenges posed by digital technology
According to him journalists are confronted with dimensional challenges from the social media which serves as vehicles for the spread of fake news in the society.
“Such training will certainly enhance the capacity of our members to counter the menace of fake news in the society by authenticating the source of any information for proper public enlightenment”
“Today everyone has access to social media and can bombard public with all sort of fake and distorted news which only trained and professionals can understand that they are false information” the chairman said.